Chapter 7: The Only Option

"The west wing is flooded," Diane Whitmore said, the words hanging in the kitchen like a death sentence.

Nadia set down her coffee cup with deliberate care. Through the pass-through window, she could see James standing on the back patio, his shoulders squared against the September wind, already aware of whatever this was.

"Both guest rooms?" she asked.

"All three, unfortunately. The contractors aren't coming until Monday. Your room is fine, the family rooms are fine, and the master suite is obviously off-limits." His mother smiled apologetically, the kind of smile that apologized for nothing. "You and James will have to double up. The furniture room is the largest—there's a bed and a sofa."

Nadia made a noncommittal noise. Through the window, she watched James turn from the railing. He scanned the kitchen, found her, held her gaze for a moment that was two moments too long. Then he looked away.

"Of course," Nadia said. "We're engaged."

The word tasted strange. Not wrong exactly. Just compressed, like a lie so small it had almost become true.

By eight o'clock that night, most of the family had retreated to their rooms or the media room downstairs. James had excused himself to take a work call. Nadia stood in the furniture room—which was, in fact, stuffed with a Victorian settee, two wingback chairs, a bureau, and one bed that was somehow both enormous and not nearly large enough—and tried to figure out which corner of the space she could reasonably occupy.

The sofa was too small. Unless James intended to sleep sitting up, which seemed unlikely.

When he appeared in the doorway, he'd changed into sweatpants and a crew neck that made him look younger, less assembled. "I can take the sofa," he said.

"It's four feet long."

"I'm aware of its dimensions."

She turned to face him fully. "This is stupid. We can share the bed. It's ridiculous to pretend we can't."

He was quiet for a long moment, and she watched something pass across his face, some calculation he was running. "Okay," he said. "Okay."

They established rules with the efficiency of people who'd negotiated spreadsheets before. Side of the bed, pillows as a boundary, lights out by midnight. It felt very corporate, this arrangement, which meant it felt like a lie too. But it was the kind of lie they'd both committed to, so neither acknowledged that.

He made a call to his assistant about a portfolio review. She scrolled through emails on her phone, the blue light painting her face in the dark. The bed was old and firm, with a headboard that creaked when either of them shifted their weight. The sheets smelled like lavender and something that was just lake house—old fabric and clean air and the idea that things were simpler here than they actually were anywhere.

"Your family seems nice," she said around midnight.

"My family is a lot of things."

"That's not an answer."

"They like you. That counts for something."

He was turned toward the wall, she was turned toward the opposite side, and somehow this felt more intimate than if they'd been facing each other. She could hear him breathe. She could hear the old radiator tick and settle, the wind in the trees outside, the murmur of water against the lake.

"What's your cousin Derek's deal?" she asked. "He asked me three times where you went to business school."

"He didn't believe you."

"I told him Stanford."

"Right. And he looked skeptical because everyone knows I didn't go to Stanford."

She smiled at the dark ceiling. "I panicked. It sounded corporate."

"You could have said something believable."

"I said you went to Michigan. Then pivoted to Stanford when he followed up."

"Jesus, Nadia."

"That's why you exist. Backup." She paused. "For these things."

The radiator ticked again. Outside, a loon called across the water, that sound that was half-laughter and half-warning. She'd always found it unsettling, that sound. Too honest.

"I've been thinking about the Hendersons account," James said.

It took her a moment to remember it was the new client, the one they'd presented to together. "Yeah?"

"Your mock-up of the rooftop setup. That was good work."

She turned her head slightly, trying to see his profile in the darkness. "You would have told me if it wasn't."

"I would have," he agreed. "But you should know anyway. You're good at this. Better than good. There's something about the way you solve for client anxiety without patronizing them."

"I lower my gaze and nod thoughtfully."

"You listen," he said. "Actually listen. Most people pretend to."

The compliment sat between them like something breakable. She wasn't used to James this way, unguarded and talking about her work like it mattered to him beyond the portfolio. In the office, there were layers of formality. There was protocol.

Here, there was just her breathing and his breathing and the accumulated weight of six months of careful distance being slowly compressed into nothing.

"James—"

"I almost called you last week," he said. "Just to talk. Not about work."

The darkness meant she didn't have to control her expression. She let herself feel the size of that sentence for a moment before she answered. "Why didn't you?"

"Because we're not actually engaged."

She wanted to argue that the distinction didn't matter, that he'd had her number and that alone was invitation enough. But that would be careless. That would be the kind of thing she was here to prevent.

"This was supposed to be simple," she said instead.

"I know."

"You were supposed to get your promotion recommendation, and I was supposed to get mine, and then we'd have a very civilized ending to a fake engagement."

"That was the plan."

"And then I'd eventually move to a different firm, or you would, and this would be something we didn't talk about at parties."

He turned then, facing her. Even in the near-complete darkness, she could see the angle of his jaw, the line of his shoulders against the window light. "Was that your plan?" he asked quietly.

She couldn't lie to him. Not here. Not like this. "No," she said. "It wasn't."

He reached out slowly, giving her time to move away. His hand found hers across the pillows, his fingers tracing her palm like he was reading something there. His thumb pressed once against her wrist, feeling her pulse or perhaps leaving his own.

"I've been waiting six months for a reason to talk to you that wasn't about a client," he said.

"You could have just talked to me."

"No, I couldn't." He withdrew his hand, and she felt the absence like cold air. "I'm your superior. Or I was. It would have been inappropriate."

"And now?"

"Now you're my fake fiancée, which is somehow both worse and the only thing that makes sense."

She wanted to tell him that she understood, that she'd also counted the months backward and forward, looking for entry points. That she'd asked for rooms near his, that she'd scheduled calls during times she knew he was working, that she'd looked forward to those moments with a consistency that had become its own kind of honesty.

But then she realized he was still talking. There was something he was building toward, some architecture of words he was constructing brick by brick.

"If this ends," he started, then stopped. Started again. "When this ends, when we end whatever this is, I need you to know that it won't have been—" He stopped again, and she heard the frustration in it. The rarity of James Whitmore failing at articulation.

She waited.

"I need you to know I wasn't using you."

The words sat there. Not romantic, not polished. Just true in the way that mattered.

"I know," she said.

He didn't respond immediately, and in that silence, she felt something settle, some acceptance of the impossible situation they'd created. They were engaged in a fake engagement. They were colleagues who'd crossed into something neither of them had negotiated. They were two people in a bed in a lake house in the dark, and everything between them was still unresolved.

"Go to sleep," she said finally.

"Nadia—"

"Tomorrow we'll have breakfast with your family and I'll laugh at your father's jokes and someone will ask about wedding plans and it will all be fine. But right now, go to sleep."

She heard him exhale, a long, measured breath. "Okay."

He turned back toward the wall. She turned back toward the window. But this time there was no space between the edge of the mattress and where he lay. One of them—she wasn't sure which—had closed the distance between sides.

She stayed awake long enough to feel him relax into sleep, to hear the rhythm of his breathing shift into something deeper. The loon called again across the water, and she understood it better now. Half-laughter, half-warning.

She was still awake when his hand found hers under the covers, some unconscious surrender of the rules they'd written. She didn't pull away.

Outside, the wind picked up. Inside, in the dark and the quiet, there was only the certainty that whatever happened next, they'd already crossed into territory neither of them could quite map.